Red Holzman - Hall-of-Fame coach of the 1970 Knicks - takes the reader back to that unforgettable season when the New York Knicks won their first NBA championship. After having finished near the league's bottom for an entire decade, no one expected them to win that year.Now we have the book that tells it all. Red does for the 1970 Knicks what Roger Kahn did for the inimitable Brooklyn Dodgers in THE BOYS OF SUMMER. Giving us more than just the plays and the box scores, Red and his team reveal themselves in a brand new light. For the first time we see their passions, and their personalities.The team included Bill Bradley (now senator from New Jersey), Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Dick Barnett, and Cazzie Russell. Their opponents included such legendary super-stars as Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson. Taking us behind the scenes, Red and his team now give us the stories behind the stories. The players as they really were in life, not just the way they looked on TV.Then, in a special epilogue, Red and the team play a Fantasy Game with Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls - and defeat them.

Holzman, coach of the 1969-70 New York Knicks, relives that magical season when the team captured its first NBA championship. It was a squad that featured unselfish passing, voracious defense, and intelligent playmaking from players like Dave DeBusschere, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, and Willis Reed. Holzman readily admits he is more a craftsman than a motivator (e.g., "this is a really big game" was his best pitch), with the ability to arrange the parts into a polished whole. This is epitomized in his account of how the team overcame an injury to Reed in defeating a Los Angeles Laker squad led by Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Wilt Chamberlain. For spice, the former coach includes his rendition of a fantasy game in which his Knicks are matched against the current champions, the Chicago Bulls. This book will be a delight for devotees, particularly Knicks fans. For large and regional sports collections.- William H. Hoffman, Ft. Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., Fla.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.